Tangut character 17D3E

The Tangut character 𗴾 is read in scholarly reconstruction as ²ve₁ (a pronunciation, not an English translation). The script was introduced in 1036, giving Western Xia a written identity and carrying Buddhist scripture and translated books. Its forms drew on Chinese writing without descending from it; the neighboring Khitan people had made scripts about a century earlier. Tangut Buddhist inscriptions survive through 1502, after Western Xia fell in 1227.